Rob
ert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are perfect for each other. Perpetually in
bad moods, they glower at the cameras and give
grumpy sound bites and generally behave as if their money and fame is some vast burden on their young shoulders. Compared to them,
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg look like Snooki and The Situation
making out in a hot-tub.
Of course, if you're too young to know who Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are, then R-Pattz and K-Stew are probably your romantic role models. If 'Twilight' fans are trusting enough to let a vampire nuzzle their necks, they're hardly going to suspect a studio of being so cynical as to
fake a relationship between its stars in order to sell movie tickets. But let's take a closer look at that relationship, shall we?
(And kids -- don't forget to ask a grown-up's permission before leaving an angry comment on this story!)
Even if we believe this toothsome twosome is really a couple -- and we don't, necessarily -- then there was at least some overlap with Kristen's previous beau, Michael Angarano. She was with Angarano on-set while filming 'New Moon,' when she explicitly denied a relationship with Pattinson. ("Rob and I are good friends," she told Nylon magazine, but then couldn't resist the characteristically self-pitying: "It's only natural that we sort of lean on each other, because we're put in the most f***ing psychotic situations.")
Since that flat-out denial, there has been no official update from either of the pair. They werephotographed by a small-town blogger on vacation together in Britain in January, and may or may not have "confessed" to Oprah that they're a couple -- off camera, of course.
And in March, Kristen attended the New York premiere of Rob's film 'Remember Me,' which she is not in, although they were not side-by-side. (Pattinson spent the night glued to his co-star, Emilie de Ravin, maybe to make up for the fact that he's so beautiful the film's producers figured they only needed to use one of her eyes and some teeth on the movie poster.)
Perhaps the media wouldn't be so suspicious of the real relationship between Rob and Kristen if there wasn't such a massive financial incentive for them to lead us along. All this speculation that the fictional Edward Cullen and Bella Swan are in lurve in real life is a bonanza for the 'Twilight' franchise -- whose first two films have grossed more than $1.1 billion at the box office worldwide.
Fake relationships have become such a common marketing tool in film and television that we even dubbed it "the Aniston effect" earlier this year when three different 'Dancing With The Stars' couples tried to get us to believe that their chemistry was off-screen as well as on. And if Rob and Kristen really are just following the studio's orders to generate heat for their films, at least it would explain why they're so sour all the time.
Perhaps what is so galling about the pair's miserable attitude is that neither brings as much to their roles as the roles have brought to them. They are journeyman actors playing parts that require no range: Any two out of two million other good-looking drama school grads could do the same jobs just as well.
Yet by being cast, Pattinson and Stewart have not only become cultural icons -- they're also guaranteed a lifetime income which will make them spectacularly wealthy. You'd think that, at least, might be enough for one of them to crack a smile.
ert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are perfect for each other. Perpetually in bad moods, they glower at the cameras and givegrumpy sound bites and generally behave as if their money and fame is some vast burden on their young shoulders. Compared to them, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg look like Snooki and The Situation making out in a hot-tub.
